Study Of Bacterial Flora Of Meatus In Patients Undergoing Urinary Catheterisation

One hundred and twenty patients undergoing Cardiac (78) and Neuro-surgery (42) were investigated for the colonization of meatus by potential pathogens of Urinary Tract Infections (UTI) in relation to the genesis of UTI among patients with indwelling catheters. Gram positive bacteria were isolated from 82.8% while only 17.2% of them yielded Gram negative bacteria. The difference between the rate of Gram positive and Gram negative bacterial were more among males than females (90.7% versus 9.3% in cardiac surgery and 87.5% versus 12.5% among neuro surgical patients). Out of 120 meatus swabs processed, 35.0% yielded no growth while 46.7% were positive for non-pathogenic bacteria and 18.3% pathogenic bacteria. Among coagulase negative staphylococci (CNS) the predominant species was found to be Staphylococcus hominis (48.9%) followed by Staphylococcus epidermidis (15.6%). With Gram negative bacteria, the leading species was Klebsiella pneumoniae (44.0%) followed by Escherichia coli (28.0%). Most of the Gram negative bacteria were isolated from meatus of female patients (68.0%). The most effective antibiotics against Gram negative bacteria were found to Polymyxin B, Norfloxacin, Nalidixic acid and Amikacin. The resistant rates of these antibiotics were only 0%, 4%, 9.5% and 13.0%, respectively, The present study also indicated that the meatus flora is not among the leading sources for the genesis of UTI.